Western Sicily - Sicily - page 195

LA MATTANZA
One of the Egadi Islands' most ancient traditions, the mattanza (ritual tuna slaughter) has come to a halt in recent
years due to the the ever-decreasing number of tuna swimming into the local waters.
For centuries schools of bluefin tuna have used the waters around western Sicily as a mating ground. Locals
can recall the golden days of the island's fishing industry, when it was not uncommon to catch giant breeding tuna
of between 200kg and 300kg. Fish that size are rare these days and the annual catch is increasingly smaller due to
the worldwide commercial overfishing of tuna. Climate change also appears to have disrupted the tuna's normal
breeding and migration cycle in recent years.
Traditionally, the mattanza occurred in late May or early June. Fishermen would organise their boats and nets
in a complex formation designed to channel the tuna into a series of enclosures, which culminated in the camera
della morte (chamber of death). Once enough tuna were imprisoned, the fishermen closed in and the mattanza
began. It was a bloody affair - with up to eight or more fishermen at a time sinking huge hooks into a tuna and
dragging it aboard. Anyone who has seen Rossellini's classic film Stromboli will no doubt recall the mattanza
scene, one of the most famous accounts of this ancient tradition.
The number of tuna caught by this method was relatively small and sustainable - the fact that the mattanza
took place for around 900 years without overfishing is testament to this. Problems arose with the increase in com-
mercial fishing in the 1960s: tuna were caught year-round, and deep waters were exploited using long-line fishing
and indiscriminate means such as drift and gill nets. Anything that passed by was caught, and thus the oceans'
fish resources were depleted.
According to some scientists, additional problems such as high legal fishing quotas and illegal fishing are caus-
ing 'irreversible' damage to bluefin tuna stock. Fishermen have largely lost their livelihoods; for several years, La
Mattanza was reinvented as a tourist attraction, but even that was finally discontinued in 2007.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Favignana
The largest of the islands is butterfly-shaped Favignana, which is dominated by Monte
Santa Caterina (287m) to the west. You can easily explore it on a bicycle, as the eastern
half of the island is almost completely flat. Around the coast, deep gouges in the cliffs are
reminders of tufa quarrying that occurred in the past; many of these have now been re-
claimed by the crystal-clear waters and are atmospheric swimming spots.
Sights & Activities
The first thing you'll see as you step off the boat is the Ex-Stabilimento Florio della Tonnara , the
town's historic tuna factory. Vincenzo Florio Sr (1799-1886), a brilliant Palermitan busi-
nessman who had built an empire in the sulphur, shipping and Marsala industries, also in-
vented a way of steam-cooking and preserving canned tuna that revolutionised the fish-